daily delight - february 15

really good leftovers are a precious resource. we ate this beautiful veggie curry that was cooked by husband's eldest, who is studying to be a chef, on saturday night and today, i'll warm it up, throw in a little more broccolini and voila - a delicious dinner that's super easy for me. absolutely perfect on a monday night after a long day in front of the computer, participating in endless teams meetings. 

paying attention

sabin glanced out the bathroom window this morning and squealed, "there's a deer right in our back yard!" i almost never look out the bathroom window. especially not in the morning, where i've stumbled into the bathroom, bleary eyed and blind anyway, because likely as not, my glasses are still on the bedside table. but there she was, a sweet young doe, standing under the old apple tree, nibbling at the tender new leaves on the bramble of wild raspberries that's at the edge of the lawn. she's probably around all the time and we just don't notice, but there was something delightful about starting off our week seeing her there. she was gentle, quiet and a bit wary, but nibbled away for some minutes before disappearing into the trees. you never know what you might see if you're paying attention.

happy monday!

sabin's sunny yellow new bike! in yesterday's sunshine. i love it so much.

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i also love this (and how did i not know about it)

comedians in cars getting coffee

jerry seinfeld can make nothing seem so profound.

a few of my favorite things

inspired by npr's favorite things piece, i give you a few of my favorite things.  1) little felted amanita by lisa. 2) the chicken-suit guy minifigure that started my whole minifigure madness. 3) herbert the bobbaloo by the fabulous kit lane. 3) my faces brooch by cathy cullis. 4) ohrid pearl earrings i got at lake ohrid in macedonia years ago. 5) my twiggy silver ring, made by a jeweler in frederikssund (where we used to live) and given to me for christmas by husband 5-6 years ago. 7) whirling dervish ink drawing from istanbul.

and this is actually different than my earlier likes/dislikes post. really it is. because these are things and some of that list was food. and feelings. and abstract stuff like queueing manners and the temperature of tea.

a big closer view of the rings and the earrings

why not share some of your favorite things too? it's actually rather fun to gather them up and arrange them and think about them. i was having a rather crap day, what with a facebook feed full of ignorant, racist, homophobic bible thumpers, the continuing refusal by post denmark to release our christmas presents and the grey, rainy weather. but thinking about my favorite things, plus a surprise lottery windfall of 3400 kroner (and i thought husband was nuts to create that online lottery account) and a lunch date later in the week with my new boss turned it right around. the weather may not have improved, but my mood definitely did.

please let me know in the comments if you do share some of your favorite things. i'd love to see them!

catching up after an unseasonably warm monday

unseasonably warm temperatures have the birds around here singing like it's spring, the mushrooms and other fungi going crazy, the raspberries continuing long after they are usually finished and it's even confused a few of the strawberries, which are blossoming again. and here we thought global warming was a bad thing.

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the child is home from russia and she had a wonderful time, tho' she says she doesn't think we should go there for a family vacation (it might be a case of been there, done that syndrome). highlights were the circus and a fabulous piece of cake she had in an old theatre turned café. after all my worries, it all turned out ok (tho' she admitted that the rhino was no fun when he was stressed, which was most of the time). i'm glad i had those flight numbers in the end, so that i knew her flight home was delayed by half an hour. it's not that much fun hanging out at midnight in billund airport.

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just saw a piece in the local newspaper about a recent wine tasting evening for women. like in english, there is but a small difference between the words wine and whine (vin - hvin) and our local journalist didn't hesitate to use it in characterizing the evening, adding insult to injury in the headline by referring to it as a henhouse on top of it all. aren't we beyond such sexism disguised as smug cuteness on the part of male journalists? sadly, apparently we are not.

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i want need a projecteo!

hello there monday morning

our weather has taken an autumnal turn, but it makes for gorgeous mornings. we've had such a good summer (the first one since i've been in denmark), that this year, i don't feel my usual impending sense of doom over the approach of autumn and our dark time of year. that's nice, as autumn was always my favorite, since it so often brought with it new books for new classes and cuddly warm clothes.

the farmers are busy, harvesting the fields. tractors rumble past our house out in the countryside all day long and well after dark. i love the golden stubble and the big bales dotting the landscape.

and the morning fog is wonderful. it lends such a quiet hush to the world and gets the day started at a pace a monday morning brain can comprehend.

happy monday, one and all.

girl power in lego minifigure form

medusa (series 10)

librarian (look here to see how someone played around with this one) (series 10)

grandma and her cat (series 11)

girl scientist (series 11)

diner waitress (series 11) (love, love, love her skates)

girl skier (series 8)

bride (series 7)

warrior girl (series 10)

red cheerleader (series 8)

hollywood starlet (marilyn?) (series 9)

fairy (series 8) - awesome detail on this one!

olympic swimmer (series 7)

girl viking (series 7)

girl viking's braids are so cool, i had to show you another shot of her

i shared my little lego minifigure obsession with you awhile ago, but since then, a couple few more have come to the join the fold. these are just some of the girls. it's a rather fun obsession - you buy a packet and don't know which one you're getting. there are communities which report on the minifigures before they come out and which have all kinds of tips for feeling up the packages to try to get the one you want. it's so much fun. i think we're going to need to find another typecase drawer to display them all. tho' half the fun for me is photographing them and finding a certain one that i know someone else wants or will love. like the librarian, i'm taking her to my friends at the library today. i don't have to keep them all in my own collection (well, except for the viking girl and the forest maiden and a couple of others i haven't shown you yet). it's enough to have photographed them, actually.

what do you collect? and how do you keep it under control?

monday is a good day for a manifesto

i want light and laughter and love and moments of perfect clarity.
to float with the unbearable lightness of being.
to live in love and creativity and happiness and contentment.

to be full of ideas.
to share them.
to release them into the world
to become what they can become,
like children.

to be open.
not to judge.
to let people be who they are.
and realize it has nothing to do with me.
to release control.
to float free.
to not be tied down by negativity.
to be filled with boundless energy.
and abundance in every way.

to be kind to the planet.
to use its resources wisely.
consuming only my share.
and leaving it behind better than i found it.

to grow...inside, but also in the garden.
to change...inside, but also the world around me.
to embrace...myself and my faults, but also those around me.

to be wiser about who matters and who doesn't.
and when to say no.
and even more importantly, when to say yes.

to run headlong through this life, open and aware and alive.
basking in the unbearable lightness of being.

* with thanks to gillian, whose manifesto inspired and to kundera for the unbearable lightness of being, and also to me, for being open to change and a whole lot of other things.

monday has a bad reputation

people say bad stuff about mondays, but honestly, despite torrential rain, hydroplaning my way home, my business partner referring to me as margaret thatcher (due to my sleeping only three hours) and the possible loss (due to my absent-mindedly leaving it somewhere) of my nikon D300, i had a great monday.

the rain is over and the sun has come out. it's gorgeous and glistening outside.

here's hoping your monday was awesome too.

happy monday!

look at that glorious morning! i took this just minutes ago, when i went to let the chickens out. it's supposed to be rather cold this week and even down below freezing a couple of nights, but it feels like spring will win out in the end - it can't be beaten back forever by arctic winds.

it's easter week - sabin's off from school all week and tho' i'm working on a big project, there will be time for riding and making things (a vow to make at least one thing every day inspired by something i've pinned on pinterest will help that) and yummy food and some visitors later in the week and a bit of gardening and lots of taking photos.

happy monday, one and all!  i'll be back later with today's pinspiration creation.

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in case you didn't see it yesterday - this is wickedly clever.

please disregard the dust

please disregard the dust

that's pretty much going to be my theme for the week...please disregard the dust. lots to do - proposals to revise, projects to start, pretty things to pin, pictures to take, thoughts to write. so much more exciting than dusting the windowsill.

happy monday.

monday musings

i'm doing an alphabet month during february for my 366 project - this is yesterday's  photo - S is for sabin, sunset, silhouette. doing a letter a day (if i count the letters of the english and danish alphabets, it perfectly fits a leap year february of 29) is harder than you might think. we're SO bound to those standard iconic words by which we learned the alphabet - a is for apple, e for elephant, k for kangaroo - and it's really hard once one of those has popped into your head to come up with something else. and although there's a camel in my neighborhood, there are no elephants or kangaroos. but S, that was easy.

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it seems that spring is coming...the horse was running and bucking like a maniac yesterday when i turned her out and the outdoor cat is in heat. poor woody, who got fixed two weeks ago, still thinks he can help her out and she's such a shameless hussy that she lets him.  we hope big brother tiger, who is still intact, gets the job done. no farm is complete without kittens.

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it would appear to be possible for a chicken to have post-partum depression. one of our brown hens, who has been nesting in recent weeks, hatched her chick yesterday. but, being a stupid and still young chicken, she left the nest and it froze to death before we realized it was there. honestly, we didn't think anything would come of all that nesting, since half of them were trying to hatch plastic eggs that we had put out to teach them where to lay the eggs. but there was a perfect little brown chick (albiet dead) in the nest and she was making decidedly sad clucking sounds when husband went to close them in for the night last evening. i thought she'd have forgotten all about it by this morning, but she's apparently still in mourning, as the sad clucks continue. poor dear. i've been watching her neighbor hen all day, in case the egg she's on hatches and she wanders away. it is a slightly dumb time of year for baby chicks with temperatures hovering around freezing, but it's quite nice to know that our chickens are working (so to speak).

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i find it hard at times to work at home. too many distractions and not enough discipline on my part. i need to find another place to concentrate (i'm thinking the library).  other times (like today, actually), i get loads done and am very focused - nearly too focused, actually - sitting too long in one position, not taking enough breaks. i wish there was somehow a happy medium.  do you sometimes work from home? if so, how do you discipline yourself? and those of you who have your own little company - how do you keep the terror that it's all on your shoulders at bay?

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happy monday, one and all.

come skate with me!

i just had to take you along for a little skate on our lake!  happy monday, one and all!

monday fizzies

you must go see what happened on the roaming gnome's first day in denmark.

and stay tuned for what happens next.

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speaking of happening, there seems to be a lot happening in ePublishing.

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speaking of self-published books - check out this delightful bobbaloo book by my friend pia!

bobbaloos, food, cake and coffee - what's not to like?

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have you noticed that if you sneak up on firefox, it freezes?

and by sneak up on it, i mean flip to it from another program, like iPhoto.

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loving this awesome idea.

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looking through my 365 tumblr makes me happy.

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here's hoping your monday was fizzy too...

eggcellent monday

you know it's going to be a good day when it begins with one perfect egg, still warm from the chicken.

quiet inspiration

a foggy monday morning. the easter holiday has begun, so no hectic panic of getting the child up, fed and dressed. no dashing to make her a lunch to take to school. just a leisurely stroll through flickr and pinterest and blogs. so tho' i woke up from strange dreams, got the tea-honey-milk ratio all wrong and got yelled at for making the child's nutella toast all wrong, this monday is shaping up to be quite all right. quiet. contemplative. inspiring.

inhabit - a collaboration i found on flickr between kikiclark & moiraandobbie

kathryn clark had been a flickr contact since i stumbled across her foreclosure quilt series, but i hadn't discovered her blog until today. if you, like me, are in the mood for some quiet, contemplative inspiration on a monday, you should make haste to her blog immediately. or well, at least after you're done reading this. and definitely do read about the inhabit project. wonderful food for thought about the spaces in which we create.

kathryn led me to find another beautiful blog called found while walking. be sure to read jamie's post about kathryn. because it all connects. all of these loops and snippets of inspiration and contemplation.

and lastly, before i go to sew something, through kathryn's blog, i was led to this beautiful, quiet, contemplative video of anna allen sewing.

that definitely makes me want to get to the sewing machine.

happy monday.

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scenes from a weekend

couchsurfing baby sleeps in the garden.
i so wish they'd had these when sabin was a baby.

those are some BIG rabbits.

barn kitty woody stands guard over solskin the bunny.

lunch in the sunshine - stenbiderrøgn (a spring caviar) on toast w/a bit of creme fraiche and red onion.

still on a high after a lovely weekend. we had the most delightful couchsurfer at our house and our youngest couchsurfer ever (just 3 months). we were so happy they stayed an extra day. if you haven't tried couchsurfing - either yourself, or as a host, i can highly recommend it. it's basically that you let interesting people stay at your house for free. and it made me realize, once again, that meeting new people and getting to know them, even just a little bit, is good for the soul.

happy monday!

what i wore today

a weekend of sunshine, a new outfit and one can face the new week head-on.

blue dress: H&M (believe it or not)

latte-colored cardigan: H&M (believe it or not)

(i'm convinced that H&M has changed, as it can't be me.)

blue tights: H&M (this we can believe)

stripey socks: H&M (we also believe this)

brown boots - vintage 

(tho' they weren't vintage when i bought them 15 years ago!)

mosaic monday: wintery tones

you know i love to take the temperature of my flickr faves occasionally and see the big picture of what's catching my eye. maybe because it's been so grey and foggy outside of late, grey tones have made their way into my normally very bright flickr faves. these are so lovely and peaceful, tho', i don't even mind the grey. 

a bit more color here, tho' still far more subdued than my usual. maybe i'm in a peaceful, soft period.

this is a little closer to my usual self, with touches of teal creeping in here and there.

i'm just adoring these softer, more washed out tones. we'll have to see how they manifest in my own surroundings.

and a few that aren't so much about the color as the subject matter...cocktails and iPhones and coffee...what more could a girl want on a monday?

as always, click on each picture to take you to my flickr stream, where you can click on through to the original photos and fave them yourself!

happy monday! if you're in the mood for healthy vegetarian fare today, check out this post. and please do suggest a name for our new tractor.  there's a handmade prize in it for the one who suggests the name we choose!

flickr faves - LOVE

accidental love

1. Poladroid Letter L, 2. Accidental Letter "O", 3. flickr.com/photos/48973657@N00/4037102429/, 4. The letter E

from the postcards to blog camp group

1. 16/365 2010, 2. 16/365*2, 3. 16.365 light and shadow, late afternoon, 4. prater, berlin, 5. Fiore Olives, 6. Encapsulated

blue whimsy

1. 110113 Blue on Blue, 2. In Amaravati, 3. How many layers are we talking about?, 4. Some of My Favourite Things, 5. Snowblind, 6. More blue spools

a dose of cute

1. january 8, 2011 - magic in pink and green, 2. Earthuse Shoot-3, 3. Basket Case Quilt, 4. ooak289, 5. ✽ ᴥ ✽ ✽ ᴥ ✽ ✽ ᴥ ✽, 6. Humphrey, Hubert and Heffle

shades of retro blue

1. Hi - Lo Motel & Cafe - Weed, California, 2. Turquoise Trailer, 3. Joy Of Cooking, 4. Shades of Blue and Green

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don't forget to check out a sustainable life - the conversation is getting very interesting over there.